


Is There (Another Way)?

by thelordvoldemort



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Mental Health Issues, Overdosing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelordvoldemort/pseuds/thelordvoldemort
Summary: The whole world thinks Jack Zimmermann OD’d on illegal drugs. Kent Parson is no fool to what the whole world would say if he was the one to actually do it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because I sent this AU to kentparsoned on tumblr and it hurt us both too good not to fic, as if last night's update wasn't painful enough: "What if Ngozi writes the rest of the story in reverse? Jack becomes successful, but lonely and burdened by lies, while Kent gets more and more depressed and eventually he OD's?" Also inspired a little bit by, "Ditmas" by Mumford & Sons, which is referenced in this fic and the title. However, this fic is Kent-centric, focused on him and his POV, not Jack. But maybe that's a story for another time.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Check, Please! or its characters. What I do own is my emotions, which are horrible.
> 
> WARNING: Mentions of suicide, OD, mental illness, mild suicidal ideation, swearing, and implied suicide.
> 
> Since I'm probably about to fuck you all up emotionally, feel free to even the score and leave every last swear you can in the comments.
> 
> I'm not 100% satisfied with this, so I might make an additional post eventually, but for now... here we go.

He thinks about it sometimes. When he’ll do it, how he’ll do it, if he’ll leave a note.

He doesn’t know if he’d actually do it, but that’s another thing to think about.

If he took pills like Jack tried to, would Jack see it as a cop out? The final fuck you? Would it hurt?

The thing is, he wouldn’t do it because of Jack. No matter what Jack’s parents tell him, Kent is pretty sure he was Jack’s last straw. As a final act of kindness to his old friend, Kent won’t let Jack be his last straw. It’s either the least or the most he could do for him.

Still, he wonders.

Kent knows Jack used his own prescription meds, so no one can truly call Kent a copy cat because he doesn’t have prescription meds, although sometimes he thinks he should – not to kill himself, but… maybe to get better. 

But that’s yet another thing to think about.

Instead, he has a stash of drugs and pills he has found in wrongful possession of his teammates, the ones he plays captain to. At first, he confiscated them from the boys so he wouldn’t have to go through a repeat performance of Jack’s OD. Then he confiscated them because the boys became his boys as he had started to care for them.

The problem is that he never threw them away.

The whole world thinks Jack Zimmermann OD’d on illegal drugs. Kent Parson is no fool to what the whole world would say if he was the one to actually do it.

++

_“And I have been resisting this decay. I thought you’d do the same. But this is all I ever was, and this is what you came across those years ago.”_

“I still can’t believe you like Mumford,” Swoops shakes his head at Kit, his eyes on Kent.

“They won like two Grammy’s and a Juno,” Kent points out, not for the first time. “Within the same year.”

“Yeah, for the same album.”

“Shut the fuck up before I revoke your visitation rights over Kit.”

He’s only half kidding. There are no visitation rights, but one time he got drunk enough to actually attempt writing one up. About halfway through, he started thinking about ownership rights. If something ever happened to him – if he ever went too far - what would happen to Kit?

_”Now you go too far. Don’t tell me that you’ve changed because that’s not the truth. And now I’m losing you.”_

Sometimes he wonders if Swoops would take her. 

“I guess they’re not too bad without the banjo,” Swoops allows in an attempt to gain some positivity points from Kit, who always seems to know when to prioritize Kent’s opinion over everyone else’s. It seems to work as Kit purrs loudly the next time Swoops strokes her.

Sometimes he thinks about asking, but he knows that would be too revealing.

++

It’s like the universe realized it messed up, Kent muses. Jack was supposed to be the big success, and when he wasn’t, Kent filled his place, rising where Jack fell. Now that Jack’s in the NHL, it’s like the universe is ready to right itself by letting Jack rise. 

What the universe didn’t account for was that in order to let that happen, it has to let Kent fall.

If he really thinks about it, there’s little denying that this has been a long time coming. He should have accounted for this the moment he pulled his rental over in the middle of the night on an empty back road in Massachusetts after leaving a frat party he never should have gone to in the first place.

++

“Would you say Jack Zimmermann has anything to do with your loss tonight?” 

Kent would say the man before him is a bold reporter, but he’s met enough of them to know that having the characteristic is part of the job.

“I would say that the entire Falconer’s team was playing at their best tonight, which, for tonight, was better than us. But we’ll get them next time.”

He winks at the crowd of reporters and tries to escape only to be dragged in by more questions.

“This is the third game in a row now that you’ve lost. Are you saying the Aces haven’t been playing their best this season?”

But that’s not right. Kent is the one that hasn’t been playing his best this season. Even though he hasn’t been playing his worst, his team and coaches have only been able to focus on the former. And yet they’re too scared to ask him about it. Probably because they already know – or at least they think they do.

++

It’s not exactly a conscious thing, but it also sort of is. The stash isn’t kept for the sole purpose to be used to end it all, but Kent can’t make himself trash them. Besides, what if someone found a garbage bag full of drugs outside Kent Parson’s apartment complex? He can’t risk that.

But it’s not like he’s just going to do any of them for fun sometimes, anyways. They always just sit there, out of sight, but not necessarily out of mind.

Kent never touches them, never goes near them. Not really.

++

“Brown eyes today, huh?” Jeff asks one day. “It’s been a while.”

Taking his shirt off shouldn’t take this long, but Kent needs an extra second to himself before he can come up with a response.

“Thought I might mix things up a bit. Test our luck.”

Tugging at the laces of one of his shoes, Jeff grunts, “Nice.”

“Whatever.”

Turning away, Kent tries to swallow to alleviate some of the dryness in his mouth. It’s no secret that Kent wears colored contacts and that he changes the color from time to time. What is secret is that he changes them based on how bad or good he’s really doing, Not even his mom has figured that one out.

++

The thing about being an athlete is that he has to physically keep in shape, fit and healthy, which means eating well and exercising daily. There’s no punishing himself.

The thing about being in locker rooms almost daily is that he can’t physically harm himself without someone noticing. 

Bruising? The game hasn’t even started yet, so unless he’s cursed to bruise up every time before he gets hurt, then that must have come from something bad.

Scratches? Who’ve you been fucking, Parser? Or did your cat do that? She have rabies or something? Maybe whomever you’re fucking has rabies.

Cuts? What do you mean you cut yourself shaving? I’ve watched you shave. You’re super fucking slow and anal about shaving. You never fuck that up.

It’s not easy finding ways to let out his frustration.

“Hey, man. My daughter loved those bracelets you gave her. Where’d you get them?”

“Oh, uh. I made them.”

“You-“

“You know. Growing up with a sister, you learn some shit. I felt bad after she cried last home game over that one bracelet breaking. I know it was her favorite and I couldn’t really get the pattern right.”

“It was a difficult pattern. Must’ve taken you forever.”

“It was whatever. Glad she likes it.”

“Yeah, I’ll send you a picture.”

“Sure.”

“How long’d it take you, anyways?”

“A while.”

“That why your hands were red for a while?”

“Ha, yeah. It was no big deal. All for a good cause.”

++

Not that anyone would, but if someone were to ask Kent when he first started thinking about it, he wouldn’t be able to give them a definite answer. He could, however, tell them that the thought has never really gone away.

++

Maybe he’d leave a note for his mom. He doesn’t write to her enough, anyways.

++

It’s no surprise when they don’t win the cup. It’s even less of a surprise when they aren’t even close, but it still hurts a little.

Kent spends a few days in bed, only getting up to take care of Kit or use the bathroom and wonders what it might be like to see doctors and be prescribed meds.

++

They don’t win the cup the next year, either, but it’s close; a lot closer than Kent would have thought.

Not much has changed in a year for Kent. He still doesn’t write to his mom enough and he knows he never will. Kit still loves him unconditionally and Kent still doesn’t think he deserves that one hundred percent some days. He’s still not on meds, still hasn’t touched the stash, and still wonders if he ever would, even though it’s been years and he still hasn’t.

He has grown quieter, though. Or at least he thinks he has. The press hasn’t caught on yet and he hasn’t been pulled aside by HR or the GM for any discussions on changed behavior. If he looks closely, though, he’ll catch some of his teammates looking at him in a way he refuses to think too deeply about.

When Jack and the blond kid Kent remembers with far too much clarity come out, Kent wonders if he should thank his lucky stars, if he even has any, that he had starting going quiet before their announcement. That way no one seems too surprised when he doesn’t have much to say on the subject.

++

Gradually he notices how tired he’s become. 

It’s the middle of playoffs, they’re on a winning streak, and Kent is just so tired. 

He doesn’t see anything when he looks in the mirror anymore, like his eyes are too afraid to look into themselves and see the truth. 

++

When they win, Kent Parson wonders what it would be like to overdose out of the Stanley Cup.

**Author's Note:**

> Um... As someone who has been dealing with mental illness for most of my life now (when I really think about it timeline wise and not getting diagnosed wise), I in no way want this fic to glorify mental illness and/or suicide. 
> 
> There is always someone there, whether they're a friend, a family member, a pet, a helpline, someone you anon on tumblr, your journal, your mirror..... It might not always get better, but there is always someone...
> 
> So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you need help, my tumblr is thelordvoldemort and I have some mental health tags that I rarely use, but I also have help/advice/vent blogs I could recommend. Or you could always come to me. I might not respond right away, but I will eventually. 
> 
> And then there's always the helplines, that depending where you are, you could call or text.
> 
> Sometimes I think it might be a little hypocritical of me to say to stay safe, but... Stay safe, friends.


End file.
